Cefn Clawdd

Round Cairn

Cefn Clawdd (Round Cairn) on The Modern Antiquarian, the UK & Ireland's most popular megalithic community website. 8 images, 1 fieldnote, plus information on many more ancient sites nearby and across the UK & Ireland.

Images (click to view fullsize)

Fieldnotes

Blimey. This must be one of the most reclusive major cairns I've come across to date... set in a conspicuous position at the north-western apex of Cefn Clawdd.... yet more-or-less invisible when viewed from Twyn-y-Post owing to a text book application of natural camouflage. Assuming there is a text book specifying 'how to hide a Bronze Age cairn utilising found resources'? Or something similar. Couldn't see it toppling Clive Cussler from the best selling lists myself, but there you are. Then again... anyone know his agent's number? I've an idea...

Nevertheless the great cairn is certainly at the given co-ordinates, sitting upon the low ridge rising beyond the small lake, the latter a handy feature with which the visitor can self-orientate in relation to this somewhat uncompromising landscape. Despite this I'm still not convinced I haven't somehow gone astray until I literally stumble over the outer arc of stonework hidden within the reedy grass (yeah, that again). Ah, there it is. What took us so long to find each other, my unobtrusive friend? In fairness my difficulty in locating the monument appears justifiable since the cairn does not seem - as far as I can determine beneath the vegetation - to have suffered the damaging effects of excavation, no doubt protected from stone-hungry eyes by its organic shield.

Although of no great height, the cairn possesses a significant diameter... "12m..[and].. up to 0.3m high" [J.J. Hall, Trysor, 10/2/2009]. There appear to be a number of dishevelled concentric lines of kerbing incorporated within the fabric, perhaps suggestive of a ring cairn? Or then again, perhaps not. Whatever, it is the sheer 'lost world' vibe of the site that makes this, for me, a very special place indeed. Indeed, how can something like this survive, in this day and age, a little over a mile from 'civilisation'? I lie back, drink my coffee and watch a towering cloudscape engaged in a stately, majestic - hey, awe-inspiring - procession across the sky, seeing fit to occasionally deposit some of its content upon the landscape below. Now that's what I call 'atmosphere'.

Time passes by, seemingly imperceptibly, although such a notion is countermanded by the cold data supplied by my watch. A further cairn is said to lie near the 'summit' of Cefn Clawdd some way to the east. I, however, elect to head north past the lake toward Gwaun Ymryson. Some more cairns there, apparently. It is a drag to leave, but there you are.